This Week in History Update

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Today in HisStory

This Week in History 5/15 – 5/21

This Week in History

May 15:

• Billy Graham launches a crusade that draws 18,000 people to Madison Square Garden (1957)
• WW2: Birth of Women’s Army Corp (1942)
• National Woman Suffrage Association forms in New York, founded by Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1869)
• Gordon Cooper is launched into space aboard Faith 7 on the longest American space mission to that date (1963)
• President John Adams orders the federal government to pack up and leave Philadelphia and set up shop in the nation’s new capital in Washington, D.C. (1800)
• McDonald’s opens its first restaurant in San Bernardino, California (1940)
• Las Vegas, Nevada founded (1905)
• WW1: The first officer’s training camp is opened in the US, as the country prepares for war (1917)
• In an attempted coup d’état, the Japanese Prime Minister Inukai Tsuyoshi is killed (1932)
• Mickey Mouse made his first ever appearance in silent film Plane Crazy (1928)
• Gigi, directed by Vincent Minnelli and starring Leslie Caron and Maurice Chevalier, premieres (1958)
• Johannes Kepler discovers harmonics law (1618)
• Opening of the first private mental health hospital in the United States, the Asylum for the Relief of Persons Deprived of the Use of Their Reason, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (1817)
• Joseph Smith, founder of the Mormons, ordained by John the Baptist according to Joseph Smith (1829)
• US Department of Agriculture created (1862)
• Pope Innocent IV issues the papal bull ad exstirpanda, which authorizes, but also limits, the torture of heretics in the Medieval Inquisition (1252)
• Anne Boleyn & brother George, Lord Rochford, accused of adultery and incest (1536)

May 16:

• Republican Convention in Chicago selects Abraham Lincoln as candidate (1860)
• WW1: The Sedition Act of 1918 is passed by the U.S. Congress making criticism of the government an imprisonable offense (1918)
• Dirk Willem, an Anabaptist, while fleeing arrest for being baptized as an adult and allowing secret church meetings in his home, stopped to rescue his pursuer when frozen ice broke beneath him, then was arrested and burned at the stake (1569)
• Chaim Weizmann elected first president of Israel (1948)
• WW2: First of 180,000 plus Hungarian Jews reach Auschwitz (1940)
• Human stem cells are successfully cloned (2013)
• By one vote, US Senate fails to impeach President Andrew Johnson (1868)
• Supreme Court ruled bootleggers must pay income tax (1927)
• US Congress authorizes the nickel 5 cent piece (1866)
• First Academy Awards (1929)
• Joan of Arc canonized a saint (1920)
• WW2: Jewish resistance in the Warsaw ghetto ends after 30 days of fighting (1943)
• WW2: In Operation Chastise, No. 617 Squadron RAF begins the famous Dambusters Raid, bombing the Möhne and Eder dams in the Ruhr valley with bouncing bombs (1943)
• George A. Hormel & Co introduces Spam (1891)

May 17:

• Castro offers to exchange Bay of Pigs prisoners for 500 bulldozers (1961)
• Lewis & Clark begin exploration of Louisiana Purchase (1804)
• 24 merchants form New York Stock Exchange at 70 Wall Street (1792)
• Revised version of New Testament is published (1881)
• Buffalo Bill Cody’s first wild west show premieres in Omaha (1883)
• American Revolutionary War: the Continental Congress bans trade with Canada (1775)
• John Hawkins & Richard French patent the Reaping Machine (1803)
• John Flynn establishes  the world’s first civilian flying doctor service in the Australian Outback (1928)
• Louis Joliet & Jacques Marquette begin exploring Mississippi (1673)
• During the Boxer Rebellion in China, three villages within 100 miles of Peking are burned by Boxers and 60 Chinese Christians killed (1900)
• French and Indian War: Britain declares war on France (1756)
• The International Telegraph Union is established (1865)
• Alaska becomes a US territory (1884)
• Brown vs. Board of Education ends public school segregation (1954)
• The Conservative Baptist Association of America was formally established as a breakaway movement from within the American Baptist Convention. (1947)
• Pánfilo de Narváez departs Spain to explore Florida with 600 men, only 6 survive (1527)
• Liberius, champion of Nicene orthodoxy, was elected as the 36th pope of the early church (352 AD)
• Senate Watergate Committee begins its hearings (1973)

May 18:

• John Winthrop is elected 1st Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony when Puritans are granted voting rights (1631)
• Mount St Helen erupted in Washington State killing 60 (1980)
• Congress approves “Lindbergh Act” making kidnapping a capital offense (1934)
• TWA began commercial service (1934)
• General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony decreed that anyone in a political position must be a church member (1631)
• Rhode Island enacts first law declaring slavery illegal (1652)
• US Supreme court affirms legitimacy of racial separation in Plessy v Ferguson (1896)
• WW1: US Congress passes Selective Service Act, authorizing the federal government to raise a national army for the American entry into the war through compulsory enlistment (1917)
• Acre, the last territory in Palestine taken by the first Crusaders, fell to invading Muslim armies (1291)
• Napoleon Bonaparte proclaimed Emperor of France by the French Senate (1804)
• Popular evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson disappeared while on a beach outing, and turned up five weeks later claiming to have been kidnapped and held prisoner before escaping from her abductors (1925)
• Gene Roddenberry suggests 16 names including Kirk for Star Trek Captain (1965)
• Massachusetts rules all school-age children must attend school (1852)
• A mass panic on Khodynka Field, Moscow, during the festivities of the coronation of Russian Tsar Nicholas II, results in the deaths of 1,389 people (1896)
• US Supreme Court rules states could not force mentally unstable criminal defendants to take anti-psychotic drugs (1992)
• The Church of the United Brethren in Christ was organized in Lancaster, PA (1766)
• Beatles’ last released LP, “Let It Be” (1970)
• “Dracula”, by Irish author Bram Stoker is published by Archibald Constable and Company in London (1897)

May 19:

• About midday, near-total darkness descends on New England, now known to be caused by forest fires in Canada (1780)
• US Post Office authorizes use of postcards (1898)
• First department store opens (1848)
• Mexican America War: Mexico gives Texas to US, ending the war (1848)
• English colony Massachusetts Bay grants Puritans voting rights (1631)
• Massachusetts Bay, Plymouth, Connecticut & New Harbor form United Colonies of New England (1643)
• Lawrence of Arabia dies as a retired Royal Air Force mechanic living under an assumed name (1935)
• England is declared a Commonwealth by an act of the Long Parliament making England a republic for the next 11 years (1649)
• King George II of England grants the Ohio Company a charter of several hundred thousand acres of land around the forks of the Ohio River (1749)
• The complete Old and New Testament English Revised Version (EV or ERV) of the Bible was first published (1885)
• US Homestead Act becomes law – providing cheap land for settlement of the American West (1862)
• Ann of Boleyn, 2nd wife of English King Henry VIII, is beheaded at the Tower of London on charges of adultery, incest and treason (1536)
• England’s King Charles II approved a bill requiring all ministers to assent publicly to the Anglican Book of Common Prayer (1662)
• First mass production of shoes (1885)
• The musical Godspell, based on the book of Matthew, first opened (1971)
• Alcuin of York, Middle Ages theologian who promoted education, died (804 AD)

May 20: 

• American aviator Charles A. Lindbergh takes off on the world’s first solo, nonstop flight across the Atlantic Ocean (1927)
• Jesse Overholtzer founded Child Evangelism Fellowship in Chicago (1937)
• US Homestead Act becomes law which provides cheap land for the settlement of the American West (1862)
• US Civil War: Kentucky proclaims its neutrality in Civil War (1861)
• US Civil War: North Carolina becomes 11th & last state to secede from Union (1861)
• Shakespeare’s Sonnets are first published in London, perhaps illicitly, by the publisher Thomas Thorpe (1609)
• Shoes were made for both right & left feet (1310)
• Ameilia Earhart becomes first woman to fly solo across Atlantic (1932)
• George Gordon and his wife, missionaries to Erromanga island, were martyred by the chief of the island (1861)
• The first public display of Thomas Edison’s prototype kinetoscope to members of the National Federation of Women’s Club (1891)
• Hubble Space Telescope sends its first photographs from space (1990)
• Levi Strauss and Jacob Davis receive patent for blue jeans (1873)
• Homestead Act provides cheap land for settlement of West (1862)
• Columbia University in New York City was chartered as King’s College under sponsorship of the Episcopal Church (1754)
• Death of John Eliot, colonial missionary to the American Indians of Maryland (1690)
• Shakespeare’s Sonnets are first published in London (1609)
• First Christian ecumenical council opens at Nicaea, Asia Minor (320 AD)
• Columbia University in New York City was chartered as King’s College (1754)
• Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama arrives at Calicut, India becoming the first European to reach India by sea (1498)

May 21:

• Lindbergh lands in Paris ending first solo flight across Atlantic (1927)
• Hudson Taylor, founder of the China Inland Mission, was born (1821)
• Charles Wesley credits this as the day he received the witness of the Holy Spirit that he was saved (1738)
• Lewis & Clark Expedition begins (1804)
• US Civil War: Richmond, Va, is designated Confederate Capital (1861)
• Lawrence, Kansas is captured and sacked by pro-slavery forces (1856)
• American Red Cross founded by Clara Barton (1881)
• First Democratic Party Convention (1832)
• Pierre Poiret, founder of the Pietistic movement which attempted to give Christian life more feeling and make it less formal, died (1719)
• First bicycles, swift walkers, in US introduced in New York City (1819)
• Connecticut enacts first speed-limit law of 12 miles per hour (1901)
• WW2: Nazis kill “unfit” people in East Prussia (1940)
• Mount Unzen on Japan’s Shimabara Peninsula, erupts creating a tsumasi, killing about 15,000; Japan’s deadliest volcanic eruption (1792)
• The General Assembly of Geneva, Switzerland officially embraced Protestantism by accepting the evangelical faith of the Swiss reformers (1536)
• Stanislav Petrov awarded World Citizen Award for averting a potential nuclear war in 1983 after correctly guessing Russian early warning system at fault (2004)
• All My Children star Susan Lucci finally wins a Daytime Emmy after being nominated 19 times, the longest period of unsuccessful nominations in television history (1999)

This Week in History 5/8 – 5/14

This Week in History

May 8:

• VE Day, Victory in Europe Day celebrates defeat of Nazis when Germany signed an unconditional surrender (1945)
• US Civil War: Richmond, Virginia is named the capital of the Confederacy (1861)
• Hernando de Soto discovers Mississippi River (1541)
• World Health Organization announced smallpox had been eradicated (1980)
• Jacob’s Pharmacy in Atlanta sells first Coca-Cola which contained cocaine (1886)
• Ernest Rutherford publishes his discovery of two different kinds of radiation – Alpha and Beta Particles (1899)
• English parliament declares Charles Stuart to be King Charles II of England (1660)
• First installment of Hans Christian Andersen “Fairy Tales” published by C. A. Reitzel in Copenhagen, Denmark (1835)
• John Brown holds antislavery convention (1858)
• Parliament of Worms installs edict against Martin Luther (1521)
• The American Bible Society was organized (1816)
• US establishes the military draft (1792)
• Mohandas Gandhi begins a 21-day fast in protest against British oppression in India (1933)
• US Mexican War: first major battle of Mexican War fought at Palo Alto, Texas (1846)
• Sarah Ann Henley survives 76 mile jump from Clifton Bridge in Avon, England (1885)
• Southern Baptist Convention was formed by 300 representatives from Baptist churches in Georgia, Virginia and South Carolina (1845)
• Jacobus Arminius, who wrote about the doctrine of Arianism, was appointed Professor of Theology at Leiden University in Amsterdam (1603)
• China cedes Taiwan to Japan under Treaty of Shimonoseki (1895)
• First American flag seamstress Betsy Ross weds John Claypoole (1783)

May 9:

• US President Woodrow Wilson issues a proclamation creating Mother’s Day (1914)
• US Revolutionary War: First newspaper cartoon in America-divided snake “Join or Die” (1754)
• 17th amendment provides for election of senators by popular vote (1913)
• Vietnam War: Reporter breaks the news of secret bombing in Cambodia (1969)
• British parliament accepts abolition of slave trade (1788)
• The International Astronomical Union formally adopt Annie Jump Cannon’s stellar classification system which, with only minor changes, is still used today (1922)
• Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West Show opens in London (1887)
• WW1: Allies launch dual offensive on Western Front (1915)
• House votes to initiate impeachment proceedings against US President Nixon (1974)
• WW2: The Channel Islands are formally liberated by the British (1945)
• WW2: The Soviet Union marks Victory Day (1945)
• US Civil War: US Naval Academy relocated from Annapolis, Maryland to Newport, Rhode Island (1862)
• US becomes the first country to legalize the birth control pill (1960)
• First horseless carriage show in London featured 10 models (1896)
• WW2: British intelligence breaks German spy codes after capturing Enigma machines aboard the weather ship Muenchen (1941)
• WW2: Czechoslovakia liberated from Nazi occupation (1945)
• The steam locomotive City of Truro becomes the first steam engine to exceed 100 mph (1904)
• Lawn mower patented (1899)
• Reno, Nevada is founded (1868)
• Cornerstone for Hebrew University, Jerusalem laid (1925)
• A financial panic begins in the US following the struggle between two groups to control the railroads between the Great Lakes and the Pacific (1901)
• Ronald Hubbard publishes Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health, which launches the religion of Scientology (1950)
  
• US Civil War: Battle of Dalton, Georgia (1864)
• The first Australian Parliament opens in Melbourne (1901)
• WW2: 5th German Pantser army surrenders in Tunisia (1943)
• Vietnam War: 100,000s demonstrate against Vietnam War in reaction to 4 rioters killed at Kent State (1970)
• Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo starring Jimmy Stewart and Kim Novak, is released (1958)
• Captain Blood attempts to steal Crown Jewels (1671)
• Declaration of Independence of Romania (1877)
• WW2: Hermann Goering is captured by the United States Army (1945)
• Treaty of Windsor between Portugal and England, the oldest diplomatic alliance in the world which is still in force (1386)

May 10:

• US Revolutionary War: 2nd Continental Congress in Philadelphia names George Washington supreme commander (1775)
• First Mother’s Day observed (1908)
• US Revolutionary War: 2nd Continental Congress convenes in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and issues paper currency for first time (1775)
• First Barbary War: The Barbary pirates of Tripoli declare war on the United States of America in first US foreign war (1801)
• Transcontinental railroad completed (1869)
• Apollo 10 transmits first color pictures of Earth from space (1969)
• First US Navy ship, the “United States,” is launched (1797)
• Victoria Woodhull becomes first woman nominated for US presidency by Equal Rights Party at Apollo Hall, NYC (1872)
• WW2: The first German bombs of the war fall on England at Chilham and Petham, in Kent (1940)
• WW2: Nazis stage public book burnings in Germany (1933)
• US Revolutionary War: Ethan Allen and Benedict Arnold lead a successful attack on Fort Ticonderoga in upstate New York (1775)
• US President Hayes has first phone installed in White House (1877)
• First Barbary War: The Barbary pirates of Tripoli declare war on the United States of America, first US foreign war (1801)
• J. Edgar Hoover becomes director of FBI (1924)
• Halley’s Comet closest approach to Earth (1910)
• Benjamin Franklin tests the lightning conductor with his his kite-flying experiment (1752)
• US Civil War: Confederate President Jefferson Davis is captured by Union Army (1865)
• A hand grenade which was thrown by Vladimir Arutyunian lands about 65 feet from U.S. President George W. Bush while he was giving a speech, but it malfunctions and does not detonate (2005)
• WW2: Churchill becomes Prime Minister of England as Germany invades Holland and Belgium (1940)
• Vietnam War: US troops begin attack on Hill 937, Hamburger Hill (1969)
• Bacon’s Rebellion begins, frontiersmen vs Virginia government (1676)
• Scottish Protestants under John Knox uprising against Queen Mary (1559)
• Columbus discovers Cayman Islands (1503)
• John Johnson, a free African American, is granted 550 acres in Northampton, Virginia (1652)
• US Civil War: Confederate General Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson dies (1863)
• US atomic sub USS Triton completes first submerged circumnavigation of the globe (1960)
• Nelson Mandela sworn in as South Africa’s first black president (1994)
• Victoria Woodhull becomes first woman nominated for US presidency by Equal Rights Party (1872)

May 11:

• American Bible Society founded (1816)
• First hospital founded, Pennsylvania Hospital, in the 13 Colonies in America (1751)
• In New York City, more than 170 countries decide to extend the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty indefinitely and without conditions (1995)
• Ellis Island added to Statue of Liberty National monument (1965)
• Waltz introduced into English ballrooms (1812)
• BF Goodrich announced the development of tubeless tire in Akron, Ohio (1947)
• The General Court of Massachusetts repealed two laws: one forbidding Christmas, and the second mandating capital punishment for Quakers (1682)
• By a vote of 37-12, Israel becomes 59th member of UN (1949)
• Waltz introduced into English ballrooms which some observers considered disgusting and immoral (1812)
• Mercedes-Benz is formed by Gottlieb Daimler and Karl Benz merging the two companies (1924)
• Minnesota admitted as 32nd US state (1958)
• US Civil War: Confederate General J.E.B. Stuart is mortally wounded at Yellow Tavern (1864)
• British Prime Minister Spencer Perceval is murdered (1812)
• Constantinople becomes capital of Roman Empire (330 AD)
• In Australia, William Lawson, Gregory Blaxland and William Wentworth lead an expedition westwards from Sydney opening up inland Australia for continued expansion (1813)
• While visiting Japan, Prince Nicholas, later Tsar Nicholas II, survives an assassination attempt in what becomes known as the Otsu Scandal (1891)
• Siam renames itself Thailand (1949)
• Jews are expelled from Stria, Austria (1421)

May 12:

• WW2: Konrad Zuse presents the Z3, the world’s first working programmable, fully automatic computer, in Berlin (1941)
• William Wilberforce makes his first major speech on abolition in UK House of Commons (1789)
• WW2: Nazi U-boat sinks American cargo ship at mouth of Mississippi River (1942)
• US Revolutionary War:Americans suffer worst defeat of revolution at Charleston (1980)
• Wireless Radio Broadcasting is patented by Nathan B Stubblefield (1908)
• US Civil War: Last land action of Civil war at Palmito Ranch, Texas (1865)
• Toilet that flushes itself at regular intervals is patented (1792)
• WW2: Nazi blitzkrieg conquest of France began by crossing Muese River (1940)
• US Civil War: Battle of Spotsylvania Courthouse, Virginia (1864)
• George VI crowned King of England after Edward VIII abdicated his throne (1937)
• Body of kidnapped son of Charles Lindbergh is found in Hopewell, New Jersey (1932)
• WW2: 1,500 Jews gassed in Auschwitz (1942)
• WW2: Benito Mussolini ends women’s rights in Italy (1928)
• Wenchuan earthquake, measuring 7.8 in magnitude occurs in Sichuan, China, killing over 87,000, injuring 374,643 and leaving homeless between 4.8 million and 11 million people (2008)
• English barons serve ultimatum on King John leading to Magna Carta (1215)
• Federal Emergency Relief Administration & Agricultural Adjustment Administration form to help the needy & farmers (1933)
• US Revolutionary War: Society of St Tammany is formed by Revolutionary War soldiers which later becomes an infamous group of NYC political bosses (1789)
• Louisiana legalized prize fighting (1890)
• Opium laws enforced (1928)
• Fifty-four Knights Templar were burned at the stake as heretics in France (1310)

May 13:

• Jamestown settlers arrive and establish the first permanent English colony in America (1607)
• Great Dustbowl Storm sweeps across US prairies (1934)
• President Polk declares war on Mexico (1946)
• Approximately 2,000 students begin hunger strike in Tienanmen Square, China (1989)
• US Civil War: Private John Jefferson Williams of B Company, 34th Regiment Indiana Infantry is last man killed (1865)
• WW1: US Secretary of State Bryan sends a note to Germany demanding that Germany disavow the attacks on the Lusitania and make immediate reparations (1915)
• WW2: Winston Churchill says I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears & sweat (1940)
• US Civil War: Queen Victoria announces Britain’s position of neutrality (1861)
• WW2: US sentences 58 camp guards of Nazi Mauthausen concentration camp to death (1946)
• US Federal education funding is denied to 12 school districts in the South because of violations of the 1964 Civil Rights Act (1966)
• In Tallahassee, Florida, the State legislature passed a bill requiring daily Bible readings in all public schools (1925)
• A statute enacted in Rhode Island offered freemanship with no specifically Christian requirements which enfranchised Jews (1665)
• Turkish terrorist Mehmet Ali Agca shot and seriously wounded Pope John Paul II in an assassination attempt (1981)
• Three astronauts simultaneous walked in space for the first time (1992)
• Republic of Ecuador is founded (1830)
• Christopher Columbus’s flagship, the Santa María, is discovered off the northern coast of Haiti (2014)
• Near Fatima, Portugal, three shepherd children reported that Mary, the mother of Jesus, had appeared to them (1917)
• Arthur Phillip sets sails with 11 ships of criminals to Botany Bay, Australia (1787)
• Cardinal Richelieu of France reputedly creates the table knife (1637)
• Mary Queen of Scots is defeated at battle of Langside (1568)
• Republic of Ecuador is founded, with Juan Jose Flores as president (1830)

May 14:

• Traditional date for Ascension of Christ (33 AD)
• Delegates gather in Philadelphia to draw up US constitution (1787)
• First Anglican service in the New World at Jamestown (1607)
• State of Israel formally proclaimed as Star of David flag rises in Jerusalem for the first time in modern history (1948)
• Lewis and Clark exhibition begins (1804)
• Warsaw Pact is signed by the Soviet Union, Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland & Romania (1955)
• US grants Israel de facto recognition (1948)
• First passenger flight in an airplane (1908)
• English country doctor Edward Jenner administers the first inoculation against smallpox, using cowpox pus, in Berkeley, Gloucestershire (1796)
• Vaseline is granted a patent (1878)
• US President Harry Truman signs bill establishing a rocket test range at Cape Canaveral (1949)
• Lina Medina becomes the world’s youngest confirmed mother in medical history at the age of five (1939)
• WW2:Gen Rommel, Speidel & Von Stulpnagel attempt to assassinate Hitler (1944)
• Gail Borden, land surveyor, newspaper publisher, and inventor, patents his process for condensed milk (1853)

This Week in History 5/1 – 5/7

This Week in History

May 1:

• Empire State Building dedicated (1931)
• Back to the Bible aired for the first time on radio (1939)
• US Civil War: Atlanta campaign begins (1864)
• Pulitzer prize awarded to Harper Lee for her novel To Kill a Mockingbird (1961)
• First BASIC program runs on a computer (1964)
• Radio Shack releases Model III TRSDOS 1.3, Tandy operating system for computers (1981)
• Boulder Dam completed (1935)
• General Mills introduces Cheerios (1941)
• US Civil War: Confederate congress passed resolution to kill black soldiers (1863)
• WW2: Food rationing begins in US (1943)
• US Civil War: Reconstruction of South begins with black voter registration (1866)
• North Korea proclaims itself Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (1948)
• Publication of Species Plantarum by Linnaeus, and formal start date of plant taxonomy adopted by the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature (1753)
• First emigrant wagon train leaves Independence, Missouri, for California (1841)
• Mr Potato Head introduced (1952)
• First American, James Whittaker, conquers Mount Everest (1963)
• North Korea proclaims itself Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (1948)
• WW2: The 1940 Olympics are cancelled (1940)
• Supernova observed by Chinese & Egyptians in constellation Lupus (1006)
• Batman premieres in comic book (1939)
• TWA introduces tourist class (1952)
• American Equal Rights Association forms (1866)
• TWA introduces tourist class (1961)
• Kingdom of England recognizes the Kingdom of Scotland as an independent state (1328)
• Acts of Union comes into force, uniting England and Scotland to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain (1707)
• Mozart’s opera “Marriage of Figaro” premieres in Vienna (1786)

May 2:

• WWII: Battle of Berlin ends as Soviet army takes Berlin and General Weidling surrenders (1945)
• US Civil War: US President Andrew Johnson offers $100,000 reward for capture of Jefferson Davis (1865)
• J. Edgar Hoover, FBI director for almost 5 decades, dies (1972)
• Territory of Oklahoma created (1890)
• US president Wilson signs Harrison Drug Act (1916)
• US Civil War: Stonewall Jackson attacks Chancellorsville, wounded by his own men (1863)
• U.S. Supreme Court’s “Buck v. Bell”, permits forced sterilizations of various “unfits” by states’ authorities where such surgeries are practiced for eugenic reasons (1927)
• Anne Boleyn is arrested and taken to the Tower of London (1536)
• King Charles II gives royal charter to the Hudson’s Bay Company (1670)
• The General Conference of the Methodist Church, held in Minneapolis, demanded abolishment of racial segregation in all Methodist churches (1956)
• Martin Luther became a priest (1507)
• Missionary Hans Egede sailed to Greenland (1721)
• Good Housekeeping magazine is first published (1885)
• Osama Bin Laden is killed by United States special forces (2011)
• Birth of William Taylor, evangelist, circuit rider, and missionary (1821)
• Former VP Spiro Agnew disbarred (1974)
• Cyclone Nargis makes landfall in Myanmar killing over 130,000 people and leaving millions of people homeless (2008)
• Dr Kevorkian found innocent on assisting suicides (1994)
• US President Bill Clinton announces that accurate GPS access would no longer be restricted to the United States military (2000)

May 3:

• Great Awakening revivalist George Whitefield first arrived in America (1738)
• Sixteen year old Charles H. Spurgeon made his public profession of faith in Jesus Christ (1850)
• WW2: German ship “Cap Arcona” laden with prisoners sunk by Royal Air Force in East Sea, 5,800 killed – one of largest maritime losses of life (1945)
• Jews flee Spain to avoid persecution (1455)
• A Massachusetts law was enacted requiring church doors to be locked during the worship service because too many people were leaving before the long sermons were completed (1675)
• Margaret Mitchell wins Pulitzer Prize for Gone With the Wind (1937)
• First African American lawyer, Macon B Allen, admitted to the bar (1845)
• Royal charter granted to Connecticut (1662)
• Washington, D.C. is incorporated as a city (1802)
• Oklahoma City, Oklahoma is slammed by an F5 tornado killing forty-two people, injuring 665, and causing $1 billion in damage (1999)
• Most of San Francisco destroyed by fire, 30 die (1851)
• West Virginia imposes first state sales tax (1921)
• WW2: Japanese atrocities in Jinan, China (1928)
• First unsolicited bulk commercial e-mail “spam” is sent by a Digital Equipment Corporation marketing representative (1978)
• The Constitution of May 3, the first modern constitution in Europe, is proclaimed by the Sejm of Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (1791)

May 4:

• After an unknown shot is fired, National Guard opens fire killing four rioters at Kent State University in Ohio (1970)
• The Moravians in Pennsylvania established the Moravian Women’s Seminary at Bethlehem, the first educational institution of its kind established in colonial America (1746)
• United States Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of a New York statute exempting church-owned property from taxation (1970)
• US Revolutionary War: Rhode Island declares independence from England (1776)
• During Haymarket Square Riot in Chicago, Illinois, a bomb is thrown at a squad of policemen attempting to break up a labor rally (1886)
• Pulitzer Prize for Literature awarded to Ernest Hemingway for The Old Man & The Sea (1953)
• Margaret Thatcher becomes the first woman to be elected Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (1979)
• Construction begins by the United States on the Panama Canal (1904)
• First Grammy Awards with Perry Como & Ella Fitzgerald winning (1959)
• American Academy of Arts & Science founded in Boston (1778)
• Michigan ends death penalty (1846)
• “Unabomber” Ted Kaczynski sentenced to four life sentences plus 30 years (1998)
• Al Capone enters Atlanta Penitentiary convicted of income tax evasion (1932)
• Wars of the Roses: Battle of Tewkesbury – final battle between Lancaster and York sees the Prince of Wales, Edward of Westminster killed and King Edward IV restored to his crown thus extinguishing the Lancastrian of Plantagenet line (1471)
• The Don’t Make A Wave Committee, a fledgling environmental organization founded in Canada in 1971, officially changes its name to “Greenpeace Foundation” (1972)

May 5:

• Alan Bartlett Shepard Jr. becomes first American in Space (1961)
• Haile Selassie, missionary to Ethiopia, forced to leave the church of 48 converts on May 5, 1936, returned exactly 5 years later to find 10,000 converts (1941)
• WW2: Admiral Karl Dönitz, leader of Germany after Hitler’s death, orders all U-boats to cease offensive operations and return to their bases (1945)
• WW2: Six killed in Oregon by Japanese bomb (1945)
• Vietnam War: First large-scale US Army ground units arrive in South Vietnam (1965)
• West Germany is granted full sovereignty by its three occupying powers (1955)
• Music Hall (Carnegie Hall) opens in New York, Tchaikovsky is guest conductor (1891)
• Siege at Iranian Embassy in London ends as British SAS and police storm the building (1980)
• High school biology teacher John T. Scopes  was arrested for teaching the theory of evolution in his Dayton, Tennessee classroom (1925)
• During British Civil War, King Charles I surrenders in Scotland (1646)
• The Bay View Tragedy occurs, as National guardsmen fire upon a crowd of unarmed mill worker protestors on strike in Milwaukee, Wisconsin killing seven (1886)
• First US train robbery in North Bend, Ohio (1865)
• Gandhi freed from prison (1944)
• Eugene Antonio Marino becomes first black Roman Catholic archbishop in the U.S. (1988)
• US Civil War: Battle between Confederate & Union ships at mouth of Roanoke (1864)
• First modern perfume, Chanel No. 5 released (1941)

May 6:

• King Alfred the Great of Wessex, the English king to survive Viking attacks, wins Battle of Ethandun. After Viking invaders surrender, King Alfred converts them to Christianity and baptizes them instead of killing them and makes a peace treaty with the Danes. He became known as Alfred the Great, the first king of England (878 AD)
• US Civil War: Jefferson Davis approves a bill declaring War between the Union & the Confederacy (1861)
• Dutch colonist Peter Minuit buys Manhattan Island from local Indians for 60 guilders worth of trinkets (1626)
• US President Eisenhower signs Civil Rights Act of 1960 (1960)
• WW2: All U.S. troops in the Philippines surrender unconditionally to the Japanese (1942)
• At California’s March Field, Bob Hope performs his first USO show (1941)
• King Henry VIII orders bible be placed in every church in England (1541)
• US Civil War: Arkansas & Tennessee becomes 9th & 10th states to secede from US (1861)
• US Civil war: General Sherman begins advance to Atlanta Georgia (1864)
• Hindenburg disaster (1937)
• WW2: Axis Sally delivers her last propaganda broadcast to Allied troops (1945)
• Joseph Stalin became Premier of Russia (1941)
• John Deere makes first steel plow (1833)
• Exposition Universelle, World Fair, opens in Paris with the completed Eiffel Tower (1889)
• US Civil War: Battle of Wilderness – Confederate General Longstreet seriously injured (1864)
• US Congress ceases Chinese immigration (1882)
• Mormon Church renounces polygamy (1890)
• John Steinbeck wins Pulitzer Prize for Grapes of Wrath (1940)
• Roger Bannister becomes first man to run 4 minute mile (1954)
• During a trip to Syria, Pope John Paul II becomes the first pope to enter a mosque (2001)

May 7:

• WW2: Unconditional German surrender to the Allies signed by General Alfred Jodl at Rheims (1945)
• WW1: RMS Lusitania sunk by German submarine off the southern coast of Ireland, 1198 lives lost (1915)
• First US Presidential inaugural ball (1789)
• US Congress establishes Mother’s Day (1914)
• The concept of the integrated circuit, the basis for all modern computers, is first published by Geoffrey Dummer (1952)
• WW2: Nazi decree orders all Jewish pregnant women of Kovno Ghetto executed (1942)
• WW2: SS open fire on crowd in Amsterdam, killing 22 (1945)
• George Eastman patents Kodak Box Camera (1888)
• Columbia University approves plans for awarding the Pulitzer Prize in several categories, after established by Joseph Pulitzer (1912)
• Russian scientist Alexander Stepanovich Popov demonstrates to the Russian Physical and Chemical Society his invention – the world’s first radio receiver (1895)
• WW1: A draft of the Versailles Treaty is shown to Germans (1919)
• William Penn began monthly meetings for blacks advocating emancipation (1700)
• Dr. H. H. Holmes, one of America’s first well-known serial killers, is hanged (1896)
• English siege of Orleans broken by Joan of Arc and the French army (1429)
• Louis XIV of France inaugurates The Palace of Versailles (1664)
• Captain Robert Gray discovers Grays Harbor, Washington (1792)
• Indiana Territory organized (1800)
• Glenn Miller records Chattanooga Choo Choo for RCA (1941)
• American Medical Association organizes (1847)
• 1,200 Jews of Toledo Spain killed by Count Henry of Trastamara (1355)
• Forty thousand mercenaries, hired by Cardinal Pompeo Colonna, sacked the city of Rome, destroying two-thirds of the houses, butchering clergy and laity alike, and forcing Clement VII to flee disguised as a gardener (1527)
• The city of New Orleans was founded by Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienvill (1718)
• Isaack B Fubine of Savoy, in The Hague, patents macaroni (1660)
• The tomb of Herod the Great is discovered (2007)

This Week in History 4/24 – 4/30

This Week in History

• April 24:
• In deciding the legal case “United States v. Ballard,” the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the general principle that “the truth of religious claims is not for secular authority to determine.” (1944)
• Massacre of Armenian Christians by Turks starts on Armenian Martyrs Day (1915)
• Augustine of Hippo, early Christian theologian, was baptized (387 AD)
• Boston News-Letter, first successful newspaper in US, forms (1704)
• The Greeks enter Troy using the Trojan Horse (1147 BC)
• US Civil War: Last federal occupying troops withdraw from the South in New Orleans (1877)
• US President Harry Truman denies there are communists in the US government (1950)
• Vietnam War: American General William Westmoreland says in a news conference that the enemy had “gained support in the United States that gives him hope that he can win politically that which he cannot win militarily.” (1967)
• Easter Rising of Irish republicans against British occupation begins on Easter in Dublin (1916)
• Volcano Mt Vesuvius erupts (1872)
• Halley’s Comet sparks English monk to predict country will be destroyed (1066)
• Jacob Evert & George Dulty patent first soda fountain (1833)
• Spanish-American War: Spain delares war after rejecting US ultimatum to withdraw from Cuba (1898)
• Double Indemnity starring Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck is released (1944)
• National Medical Association of Black physicians organizes (1884)
• The Woolworth Building skyscraper in New York City is opened (1913)
• Russia declares war on the Ottoman Empire (1877)
• Jordan formally annexes the West Bank (1950)

April 25:

• Library of Congress established (1800)
• German cartographer Martin Waldseemuller first to use the name America on his world map Universalis Cosmographia (1507)
• 7.8-magnitude earthquake near Kathmandu in Nepal, killing 8000, leaving over 100,000 homeless, destroying many historic sites (2015)
• WW2: Red army completely surrounds Berlin (1945)
• Spanish-American War: The United States declares state of war on Spain effective from 21st April. (1898)
• Mexican-American War: The Thornton Affair conflict begins over the disputed border of Texas triggering the war (1846)
• US Civil War: Capture of New Orleans by the Union under Flag Officer Farragut (1862)
• Captured in 1967, the Sinai Peninsula was returned by Israel to Egypt as part of the 1979 Camp David Accord (1982)
• The Augsburg Confession, the first summary of the Lutheran faith, was read publicly at the Diet of Worms (1530)
• Robert Noyce patents integrated circuit (1961)
• Daniel Defoe publishes Robinson Crusoe (1719)
• Guillotine first used in France, executes highwayman Nicolas Pelletier (1792)
• Charles Fremantle arrives in HMS Challenger off the coast of modern-day Western Australia (1829)
• English Convention Parliament meets and votes to restore Charles II (1660)
• Birth of John Keble, English clergyman and poet credited with founding the Oxford Movement (1792)
• Patent granted for thimble (1684)
• Sigmund Freud opens practice at Rathausstrasse 7, Vienna (1886)
• Ground broken for Suez Canal (1859)

April 26:

• World’s worst nuclear accident at the Chernobyl nuclear plant near Kiev in Ukraine (1986)
• First permanent English colony in American lands at Cape Henry, Virginia (1607)
• Nationwide test of Salk’s anti-polio vaccine begins (1954)
• John Wilkes Booth, assassin of President Lincoln, is killed (1865)
• Nationwide test of Salk anti-polio vaccine begins (1954)
• Minnesota observed a statewide day of prayer asking for deliverance from a plague of grasshoppers ravishing their farms; the plague ended soon after (1877)
• WW2: Marshal Henri Philippe Petain, leader of France’s Vichy collaborationist regime during WW II, arrested for treason (1945)
• US Civil War: Confederate Gen J E Johnston surrenders Army of Tenn, at Durham NC (1865)
• Copernicus makes his first observations of Saturn (1514)
• Alexander Duff, Scottish missionary to India, was born (1806)
• Harlow Shapley and Heber D. Curtis hold “great debate” on the nature of nebulae, galaxies and size of the universe at US National Academy of Sciences, Washington, D.C. (1920)
• Dan Sickles is acquitted of murder on grounds of temporary insanity, first time this defense used successfully in the US (1859)

April 27:

• The universe is created according to German mathematician and astronomer Johannes Kepler (4977 BC)
• US Revolutionary War: British Parliament passes the Tea Act (1773)
• US Civil War: West Virginia secedes from Virginia after Virginia secedes from Union (1861)
• US Civil War: Steamboat “SS Sultana” explodes in the Mississippi River, killing up to 1,800 of the 2,427 passengers in the greatest maritime disaster in United States history (1865)
• The last Canadian missionary leaves the People’s Republic of China (1959)
• English poet John Milton sold the copyright to his religious epic Paradise Lost for ten English pounds (1667)
• The deadliest day of the 2011 Super outbreak of tornadoes, the largest tornado outbreak, in United States history (2011)
• Blind and impoverished, John Milton sells the copyright of Paradise Lost for £10 (1667)
• Soviet authorities order the evacuation of the city of Pripyat, population 50,000, one day after the Chernobyl nuclear accident (1986)
• Death of Moravian missionary Peter Bohler who led John Wesley to Christ (1775)
• Construction begins on the Freedom Tower for the new World Trade Center in New York City (2006)
• US Civil War: US President Abraham Lincoln suspends writ of habeas corpus (1861)
• Indian passive resistance is suspended when General J.C. Smuts enters into negotiations with Mahatma Gandhi (1911)
• Modern state of Israel was officially recognized by the British government (1950)
• Apollo 16 returns safely to Earth (1972)
• Geneva’s first Protestant catechism was published (1537)
• WW2: The Völkischer Beobachter, the newspaper of the Nazi Party, ceases publication (1945)

April 28:

• Using the ISO 8601 standard Year Zero definition for the Gregorian calendar preceded by the Julian calendar, the one billionth minute since the start of January 1, Year Zero occurs at 10:40 AM on this date (1902)
• US President Dwight D. Eisenhower resigns as Supreme Commander of NATO (1952)
• Mutiny on the HMS Bounty (1789)
• WW2: Mussolini, Italian dictator during the war, executed (1945)
• Al Lewis, aviation missionary, was killed in a plane crash (1955)
• Virginia Governor John Harvey accused of treason & removed from office (1635)
• Maryland becomes seventh state to ratify US constitution (1788)
• First commercial flight across Pacific operated by Pan Am (1937)
• WW2: World War II titled so as result of Gallup Poll (1942)
• The 100th General Assembly of the Southern Presbyterian Church passed a resolution declaring that sexual relations within marriage without the intention of procreation were not sinful (1960)
• British Captain James Cook, aboard the Endeavour, lands at Botany Bay in Australia (1770)
• Charles de Gaulle resigns as president of France (1969)
• 181 die in coal mine collapse at Eccles, West Virginia (1914)
• 119 die in Benwood, West Virginia coal mine disaster (1924)

April 29:

• First Anglican worship service in America at Jamestown (1607)
• Vietnam War: In Operation Frequent Wind, U.S. begins to evacuate US citizens from Saigon prior to an expected North Vietnamese takeover ending US involvement in the war (1975)
• Vietnam War: Charles McMahon and Darwin Judge are the last two United States servicemen killed in Vietnam during the war (1975)
• World War II monument opens in Washington D.C. (2004)
• US Civil War: Maryland’s House of Delegates votes against seceding from Union (1861)
• US Civil War: New Orleans falls to Union forces during US Civil War (1862)
• Joan of Arc liberates Orleans for French (1429)
• WW2: US troops liberated the oldest Nazi concentration camps, Dachau, in Bavaria, West Germany (1945)
• The Navigators began when founder Dawson Trotman began the work in San Pedro, California (1933)
• Vietnam War: 50,000 US & South Vietnamese troops invade Cambodia (1970)
• Irish republicans abandon the post office in Dublin and surrender unconditionally, marking the end of the Easter Rising (1816)
• WW2: Hitler marries Eva Braun as troops surround Berlin (1945)
• Flemish woman introduces practice of starching linen into England (1553)
• First US Rubber patent granted to Jacob F Hummel (1813)
• The Chemical Weapons Convention of 1993 comes into force, outlaws production, stockpiling and use of chemical weapons among its signatories (1997)
• First edition of Peter Roget’s Thesaurus published (1852)

April 30:

• Roman Emperor Galerius issued Edit of Toleration ending the Great Persecution of Christians (311 AD)
• Vietnam War: Last US helicopter leaves US embassy grounds, Saigon surrenders (1975)
• WW2: Hitler commits suicide (1945)
• US doubles in size through Louisiana Purchase (1803)
• First presidential inauguration (1789)
• US Department of the Navy forms (1798)
• Louisiana admitted as 18th US state (1812)
• Birth of Orville J. Nave, the U.S. Armed Services chaplain who compiled the Nave’s Topical Bible (1841)
• Warner Sallman, famous artist who painted The Head of Christ, was born (1892)
• Charles Dickens’ A Tale Of Two Cities is first published in weekly installments (1859)
• Boston Pops Orchestra forms (1885)
• US President Nixon announces the resignation of Haldeman, Ehrlichman (1973)
• US President Richard Nixon hands over partial transcripts of Watergate tape recordings (1974)
• The World Wide Web is born at CERN (1993)
• First practical typewriter finished by Italian Pellegrini Turri (1808)
• Henry VIII of England and Francis I of France signed the Treaty of Westminster, pledging to combine their forces against Holy Roman Emperor Charles V (1527)
• Roman Emperor Honorius issued a decree denouncing Pelagianism which taught that humanity can take the initial and fundamental steps toward salvation by its own efforts apart from divine grace (418 AD)
• First French colonists in North America, Jean Ribault & colonists, arrive in Florida (1562)

This Week in History 4/17-4/23

This Week in History

April 17:

• Apollo 13 arrives safely on Earth after oxygen tank explosion (1970)
• US Civil War: Virginia secedes from the Union (1861)
• 11,745 immigrants arrive at Ellis Island in New York (1897)
• The Bay of Pigs invasion begins (1961)
• Charles Henry Parkhurst, preacher who challenged Tammany Hall in New York City where police and organized crime were in cahoots, was born (1842)
• Sirhan Sirhan is convicted of assassinating US Senator Robert F. Kennedy (1969)
• Ford Mustang formally introduced (1964)
• WW2: The Kingdom of Yugoslavia surrenders to Germany (1941)
• Christopher Columbus signs contract with Spain to find Indies (1492)
• Russia abandons all North American claims south of 54° 40’N (1824)
• Geoffrey Chaucer tells the “Canterbury Tales” for the first time at the court of English King Richard II (1397)
• Bayonne Decree by Napoleon I of France orders seizure of US ships (1808)
• First US school for deaf in Hartford, Connecticut (1817)
• Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures & Louis B Mayer Co merged to form Metro Goldwyn Mayer – MGM (1924)
• Canada adopts its constitution (1982)

April 18:

• US Revolutionary War: Paul Revere and William Dawes warn of British attack in what is now known as “The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere” (1775)
• Us Revolutionary War: Fighting ceases in the American Revolution, eight years to the day since it began (1783)
• Thousands of Chinese students continue to take to the streets in Beijing to protest against the government (1989)
• US Civil War: Colonel Robert E. Lee turns down offer to command Union armies (1861)
• WW2: James Doolittle bombs Tokyo & other Japanese cities (1942)
• Great San Francisco Earthquake (1906)
• Martin Luther would not recant his thesis at the Diet of Worms (1521)
• Grace Kelly marries Prince Rainier of Monaco (1956)
• WW2: Pulitzer Prize-winning war correspondent Ernie Pyle was killed by Japanese machine-gun fire (1945)
• WW1: US Secretary of State Warns Germany that the USA may break diplomatic relations unless torpedo attacks on unarmed ships stop (1916)
• WW2: “Stars & Stripes” paper for US armed forces debuts (1941)
• A United States federal court rules that poet Ezra Pound is to be released from an insane asylum (1958)
• Supreme Court rules states could make it a crime to possess or look at child pornography, even in one’s home (1990)
• Mount Everest sees its deadliest day when 16 Nepali mountaineering guides are killed in an avalanche (2014)
• The cornerstone of the current St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican, is laid (1506)
• First crossword puzzle book published (1924)

April 19:

• American Revolutionary War: Revolution begins with the Battle of Lexington, the shot heard around the world (1775)
• American Revolutionary War: New England militiamen begin the siege of Boston, hemming in the British army garrison (1775)
• Oklahoma City bombing – a truck bomb at Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building kills 168 & injures 500 (1995)
• First Boston Marathon (1897)
• American Revolutionary War: John Adams secures Dutch Republic’s recognition of the United States as an independent government, and the Netherlands became first American embassy (1782)
• American Revolutionary War: Paul Revere is captured by the British (1775)
• Sally Ride announced as first woman astronaut (1982)
• US Civil War: Lincoln orders blockade of Confederate ports (1861)
• Reformers were first called Protestants (1529)
• Supreme Court outlaws excluding people from juries because of gender (1994)
• Connecticut finally approves Bill of Rights, 148 years late (1939)
• British explorer Captain James Cook first sights Australia (1770)
• Shirley Temple appears in her first movie, Stand Up & Cheer (1934)
• General Douglas MacArthur ends his military career (1951)
• Fidel Castro resigns from the Communist Party of Cuba’s central committee after 45 years of holding the title (2011)

April 20:

• At Columbine High School, two teenage gunman target Christian, killing 15 and wounding 23 (1999)
• WW2: Germans Nazi troops massacred the Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto (1943)
• First known performance of Shakespeare’s tragedy Macbeth at the Globe Theatre (1611)
• Birth of David Brainerd, missionary to the Stockbridge, Delaware and Susquehanna Indians (1718)
• Klu Klx Klan Act authorizes President Grant to declare martial law, impose heavy penalties against terrorist organizations, and use military force to suppress the Ku Klux Klan (1871)
• The Deepwater Horizon drilling rig explodes, killing 11 and causing the rig to sink, causing a massive oil discharge into the Gulf of Mexico and an environmental diaster (2010)
• WW2: Adolf Hitler is born (1889)
• Marie & Pierre Curie isolate the radioactive element radium chloride (1902)
• The first pasteurization test is completed by Frenchmen Louis Pasteur and Claude Bernard (1862)
• WW1: Manfred Von Richthofen, aka The Red Baron, shoots down his 79th and 80th victims marking his final victories before his death the following day (1918)
• First detective story, Edgar Allen Poe’s Murders in Rue Morgue, published (1841)
• US Revolutionary War: New York adopts new constitution as an independent state (1777)
• Territory of Wisconsin created (1836)
• Pope Gregory IX who instituted the Inquisition (1233)
• Balfour Declaration recognized, makes Palestine a British Mandate (1920)
• First check sent by radio facsimile transmission across Atlantic (1926)
• Pope Eugenius IV issued the bull which asserted the superiority of the pope over the Councils (1441)
• 136,000 mine workers strike in Ohio for pay increase (1894)

April 21:

• Traditional date Christ was crucified (33 AD)
• Thousands of Chinese crowd into Beijing’s Tiananmen Square cheering students demanding greater political and religious freedom (1989)
• D.L. Moody was converted to Christianity (1855)
• William Bradford become governor of Plymouth, Massachusetts (1621)
• Birth of A. W. Tozer, Bible scholar and author of The Pursuit of God and The Root of Righteousness (1897)
• Rome was founded by Remus and Romulus (753 B.C.)
• John Adams sworn in as first US Vice President, 9 days before Washington (1789)
• Spanish-American War: The U.S. Congress, on April 25, recognizes that a state of war exists between the United States and Spain as of this date (1898)
• WW1: German fighter ace Baron Manfred Von Richthofen “The Red Baron”, shot down and killed over Vaux sur Somme in France (1918)
• Fire at Ohio State Penitentiary kills 322 (1930)
• FBI arrested Timothy McVeigh & charge him with Oklahoma City bombing (1995)
• The Toleration Act was passed by the Maryland Assembly which protected Roman Catholics within the American colony against Protestant harassment (1649)
• William III & Mary Stuart proclaimed King & Queen, duel monarchs, of England (1689)
• Death of St. Anselm, Bible scholar, Christian philosopher, and apologist (1109)
• The first discoveries of extrasolar planets are announced by astronomer Alexander Wolszczan (1994)
• John Adams sworn in as first US Vice President nine days before Washington (1789)
• Abraham Lincoln’s funeral train leaves Washington (1865)
• Mark Twain died (1910)
• First Lady Lucy Hayes begins egg rolling contest on White House lawn (1878)
• Elvis Presley’s 1st hit record, “Heartbreak Hotel”, becomes #1 (1956)

April 22:

• Oklahoma land rush begins (1889)
• “In God We Trust” first appears on US currency (1864)
• WW1: First military use of poison gas, chlorine by Germany (1915)
• US President Washington attends opening of Rickett’s, first circus in US (1793)
• Spanish American War: US President McKinley orders blockade of Cuban harbors (1898)
• More than $3.3 million is stolen from the First National Bank of Arizona in Tucson in the then largest US bank robbery in history (1981)
• Spanish American War: Congress passes Volunteer Army Act calling for a Volunteer Cavalry (1898)
• Pedro Alvarez Cabral discovers Brazil & claims it for Portugal (1500)
• Holocaust Memorial Museum dedicated in Washington D.C. (1993)
• 243 people are injured in pro-democracy protest in Nepal after Nepali security forces open fire on protesters against King Gyanendra (2006)
• US President Richard Nixon dies (1994)

April 23:

• Traditional date Christ rose from the dead on the first Easter (33 AD)
• William Shakespeare dies (1616)
• Democratic convention in Charleston SC divided over slavery (1860)
• US Civil War: Robert E. Lee named commander of Virginia Confederate forces (1861)
• King Brian Boru of Ireland defeats Viking forces at Battle of Clontarf, freeing Ireland from foreign control (1014)
• Bishop Adalbert, first missionary to the Prussians, was murdered (997 AD)
• AIDS-virus identified as HTLV-III (1984)
• United Methodist Church forms (1968)

This Week in History 4/10 – 4/16

by Tamera Lynn Kraft

This Week in History:

April 10:

• WW2: U.S. Armed forces liberated the prison camp at Buchenwald, Germany where nearly 57,000 prisoners, mostly Jews, perished in the gas chambers (1945)
• US Civil War: General Order #9, thanking the troops and releasing them from service, was issued by General Lee to the troops of Northern Virginia after their surrender at Appomattox (1865)
• Dr Jonas Salk successfully tests Polio vaccine (1955)
• US, USSR & 70 other nations agree to ban biological weapons (1972)
• US Congress increases number of Supreme Court judges from 7 to 9 (1869)
• RMS Titanic sets sail from Southampton for her maiden and final voyage (1912)
• WW2: Austria becomes a state of Germany by popular vote (1938)
• US Revolutionary War: Commander John Paul Jones aboard the USS Ranger set sail to begin raids on British warships (1775)
• The first law regulating copyright is issued in Great Britain (1710)
• US Patent system forms (1790)
• “Big Ben”, a 13.76 tonne bell, is recast in the Tower of Westminster (1858)
• The Good Friday/Belfast Agreement for Northern Ireland is signed by the British and Irish governments (1998)
• Safety pin patented by Walter Hunt (1849)
• The Gift of the Magi is published (1906)
• The Great Gatsby” by F Scott Fitzgerald is published (1925)
• Richard Allen was elected the first bishop of the newly-created African Methodist Episcopal Church and the first black bishop in the US (1816)
• In New Orleans, torture chamber where slaves are routinely brutalized by Delphine LaLaurie is found after a fire set by a slave (1834)
• American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (1866)
• WW2: Adolf Eichmann tried as a war criminal in Israel (1961)
• First Jewish ghetto established when Venice compels Jews to live in a specific area (1516)
• New York makes syphilis test mandatory in order to get a marriage license (1938)
• Henry H. Halley, the author of the handbook, was born (1874)
• New York Tribune begins publishing under editor Horace Greeley (1841)
• More than 1,000 buildings damaged by fire in Pittsburgh (1845)

April 11:

• US Revolutionary War: Hostilities formally cease (1783)
• The Apple I computer, created by Steve Wozniak, is released (1976)
• David Zeisberger, Moravian missionary to Native Americans in Schoenbrunn and Gnaddenhuteen was born (1721)
• George Mueller opened his famous orphanage on Wilson Street in Bristol (1836)
• Ellis Island, New York, designated as an immigration station (1890)
• US Civil War: Abraham Lincoln urges a spirit of generous conciliation during reconstruction (1865)
• US President Lyndon B. Johnson signs 1968 Civil Rights Act (1968)
• William III & Mary II crowned as joint rulers of Britain (1689)
• US Navy’s first submarine made its debut (1900)
• Ugandan dictator Idi Amin, who murdered 300,000 of his people, was overthrown and escaped the country (1979)
• Apollo 13 launched to Moon; unable to land, returns in 6 days (1970)
• President McKinley asks for Spanish-American War declaration (1898)
• 450 prisoners rioted at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville, Ohio on Easter Sunday and continued to do so for ten days (1993)
• US President Harry Truman fires General Douglas MacArthur (1951)
• The foundation stone of the new St. Peter’s Basilica was laid (1506)
• Napoleon abdicates unconditionally and is exiled to Elba (1814)
• The Full Gospel Fellowship of Churches and Ministers International, formed in Dallas in 1962, changed its name to Christ for the Nations (1967)
• The last execution for witchcraft in Germany takes place (1775)
• Birth of Marcus Dods, Scottish clergyman and biblical scholar (1834)
• The Shogunate is abolished in Japan (1868)

April 12:

• Assemblies of God denomination founded (1914)
• US Civil War: War begins when Fort Sumter is fired upon (1861)
• US Civil War: James Andrews and his team steal The General, a Confederate train, at Kennesaw, Georgia (1862)
• Watchman Nee, Chinese preacher, sentenced to 15 years in prison in which he was tortured and suffered brainwashing techniques, for preaching the Gospel. Twenty years later, he died in prison without once renouncing the Gospel. (1952)
• WW2: Germany prohibits publishing “not-Arian” writers (1935)
• Texan envoys sign Treaty of Annexation with the United States (1844)
• North Carolina legislature passes anti-Klan Law (1869)
• WW2: Vichy-France’s head of government Admiral Dalarn consults with Hitler (1941)
• US Revolutionary War: Townsend Acts repealed (1770)
• Galileo is convicted of heresy (1633)
• Thomas Jefferson is born (1743)
• US President Franklin D. Roosevelt dies in office (1945)
• First US colonists on Pacific coast arrive at Cape Disappointment, Washington (1811)
• US Olympic Committee endorses a boycott of the Moscow Olympic games (1980)
• Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin becomes the first person to orbit Earth (1961)
• Sir Frank Whittle ground-tests the first jet engine designed to power an aircraft at Rugby, England (1937)
• WW2: Canadian troops liberate Nazi concentration camp Westerbork, Netherlands (1945)
• The armies of the Fourth Crusade captured Constantinople and established the Latin Empire (1204)
• The US Congress passes the Foraker Act, establishing Puerto Rico as an unincorporated territory (1900)
• The Church Missionary Society was organized in London (1799)

April 13:

• US Civil War: After 34 hours of bombardment, Fort Sumter surrenders to Confederates (1861)
• Apollo 13 announces “Houston, we’ve got a problem!” as Beech-built oxygen tank explodes en route to Moon (1970)
• US Civil War: Sherman’s march through Georgia begins (1864)
• Handel’s Messiah premieres in Dublin (1742)
• The US House of Representatives votes to institute direct elections of senators to Congress (1911)
• South Carolina rejects black suffrage (1944)
• US boycotts Summer Olympics in Moscow (1980)
• Edict of Nantes grants political rights to French Huguenots (1598)
• Due to lack of funds, Saturday mail delivery in US is temporarily halted (1957)
• Paul the Deacon, scholar and author of The History of Rome, died (799 AD)
• King Henry of France issued the Edict of Nantes, legally recognizing the Protestants and providing them religious liberties (1598)
• William Henry Lane, Juda, perfects tap dance (1808)
• Best view of Halley’s Comet in 2000 years (837 AD)
• Royal Flying Corps, RAF, forms (1912)
• Steam power brake patented by George Westinghouse (1869)
• First elephant arrives in US from India (1796)
• FDR dedicates Jefferson Memorial (1943)
• First Pony Express reaches Sacramento, California (1860)
• J C Penney opens his first store in Kemmerer, Wyoming (1902)
• US prospector Alfred Packer convicted of manslaughter though accused of cannibalism (1883)
• Pope Nicholas II decreed that future popes could be elected by cardinals only (1059)

April 14:

• President Abraham Lincoln is shot by John Wilkes Booth at Ford’s Theater (1865)
• Black evangelist William J. Seymour started services on Azusa street which flamed into the Azusa Street Revival that swept the nation (1914)
• Jewish zealots committed mass suicide within the fortress of Masada on this last night before the walls were breached by the attacking Roman Tenth Legion (73 AD)
• U.S. Secretary of State William H. Seward and his family are attacked in his home by Lewis Powell (1865)
• The Human Genome Project is completed with 99% of the human genome sequenced to an accuracy of 99.99% (2003)
• US Medical Corp forms (1818)
• Black Sunday: The worst sandstorm ravages US midwest, creating the “Dust Bowl” (1935)
• Dr Harry Plotz discovers vaccine against typhoid (1903)
• RMS Titanic hits an iceberg at 11.40pm off Newfoundland (1912)
• First Space Shuttle, Columbia 1, returns to Earth (1981)
• US Secret Service created to fight counterfeiting (1865)
• Congress forms Territory of Wisconsin (1836)
• Noah Webster copyrights First American Dictionary (1828)
• First public showing of Thomas Edison’s kinetoscope – moving pictures (1894)
• First abolitionist society founded in Philadelphia (1775)
• William Bullock patents continuous-roll printing press (1863)
• President Taft begins tradition of throwing out ball on opening day (1910)
• Four Dead in Five Seconds Gunfight erupts in El Paso, Texas (1881)
• Word “telescope” is first used (1611)
• Russian Archpriest Avvakum was martyred (1682)

April 15:

• President Lincoln dies (1865)
• Jackie Robinson becomes first black man on a major league baseball team (1947)
• The Titanic sinks as evangelist John Harper warns fellow passengers to get right with God (1912)
• First telephone installed: Boston-Somerville in Massachusetts (1877)
• Leonardo da Vinci, Renaissance artist, was born in Vinci, Italy (1452)
• Corrie Ten Boom was born (1897)
• In deciding the legal case “Watson v. Jones,” the U.S. Supreme Court declared that a member of a religious organization may not appeal to secular courts against a decision made by a church tribunal within the area of its competence (1872)
• During the Boston Marathon bombings, 3 people are killed and 183 injured after two explosions near the finish line (2013)
• Meteorite explode above Indonesia (1988)
• First modern Olympic games close in Athens, Greece (1896)
• Leonhard Euler, mathematician and Christian apologist, was born in Switzerland (1707)
• Guy Carawan sings “We Shall Overcome” to a Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in Raleigh – popularising the song as a protest anthem (1960)
• Samuel Johnson’s “A Dictionary of the English Language” published in London (1755)

April 16:

• Manifesto of religious tolerance issued in Russia by Tsar Nicholas II stopped persecution of evangelical Christians in Russia for a short time (1905)
• WW2: Red Army begins Battle of Berlin (1945)
• Virginia Tech massacre, the deadliest mass shooting in modern American history (2007)
• Birth of Grace Livingstone Hill, prolific Christian author (1865)
• Martin Luther arrived at the Diet of Worms where he would defend his “Ninety-Five Theses” and refuse to recant ‘unless overcome by Scripture’ (1521)
• Masada, a Jewish fortress, falls to the Romans after several months of siege, ending the Jewish Revolt (73 AD)
• US Civil War: US president Lincoln outlaws business with confederate states (1861)
• Birth of Merrill C. Tenney, American New Testament scholar and dean of Wheaton College Graduate School in Illinois from 1947-71 (1904)
• Vladimir Lenin issues his radical “April Theses” calling for Soviets to take power during Russian Revolution (1917)
• Queen Anne of England knights Isaac Newton at Trinity College, Cambridge (1705)
• Annie Oakley sets women’s record by breaking 100 clay targets in a row (1922)
• A solar eclipse may have marked the return of Odysseus, legendary King of Ithaca, to his kingdom after the Trojan War (1178 BC)
• The Treaty of Accession is signed in Athens admitting 10 new member states to the European Union (2003)

This Week in History 4/3 – 4/9

by Tamera Lynn Kraft

This Week in History

April 3:

• US Civil War: Union forces occupy Confederate capital of Richmond (1865)
• WW2: US President Harry Truman signs Marshall Plan giving $5B aid to 16 European countries (1948)
• The first portable cell phone call is made in New York City (1973)
• Super Outbreak where 148 tornadoes in the East, South, and Midwest United States killed approximately 315 people, with nearly 5,500 injured (1974)
• US Revolutionary War:Congress authorizes privateers to attack British vessels
• A Hawaiian surfs on highest wave ever – a 50-foot tidal wave (1868)
• Pony Express is born (1860)
• Adolf Clarenbach, first martyr of the Protestant reformation, arrested (1520)
• George Washington receives honorary Ll.D. degree from Harvard College (1776)
• Jesse James is murdered (1886)
• Joseph Stalin appointed General Secretary of the Russian Communist Party by Vladimir Lenin (1922)
• Highest mountain in North America, Alaska’s Mt McKinley, claimed to have been first climbed by 4 local men (1910)
• First airplane flight over Mt Everest (1933)
• Wood block alarm invented, when alarm rang, it dropped 20 wood blocks (1882)
• US President Barack Obama officially secures Democratic presidential nomination (2012)

April 4:

• Dr. Martin Luther King is assassinated by James Earl Ray (1968)
• Asa Mahan, first president of Oberlin College who was known for educational reforms and who allowed blacks and women to be educated alongside white men, died (1889)
• Congress decides on the US flag: 13 red & white stripes & 20 stars, stars increase according to number of states (1818)
• North Atlantic Treaty Organization NATO treaty signed in Washington DC (1949)
• Microsoft is founded as a partnership between Bill Gates and Paul Allen to develop and sell BASIC interpreters for the Altair 8800 (1975)
• US Civil War: Battle of Yorktown, first battle of the war (1862)
• US Civil War: Lee’s army arrives at Amelia Courthouse where Lee will surrender six days later (1865)
• Microsoft is founded as a partnership between Bill Gates and Paul Allen (1975)
• US Civil War: US begins Peninsular Campaign aimed at capturing Richmond (1862)
• Future German reformer Martin Luther was ordained a priest in the Roman Catholic church (1507)
• James II issued a Declaration of Indulgence allowing full liberty of worship in England (1687)
• Israel & Jordan sign armistice agreement (1949)
• Casparus van Wooden patents chocolate milk powder (1828)

April 5:

• Pocahontas marries John Rolf (1614)
• Hans Nielsen Hauge, founder of Norwegian Pietism who was jailed often for preaching the power of the Holy Spirit and spiritual renewal, experienced a spiritual renewal where he was “filled with divine joy” and instructed to preach the Gospel throughout Norway (1796)
• US President Dwight Eisenhower inaugurated the Presidential Prayer Breakfast (1953)
• US Civil War: Siege of Yorktown (1862)
• Saint Patrick returns to Ireland as a missionary bishop (456 AD)
• George Washington casts first presidential veto (1792)
• World Trade Center, then the world’s tallest building, opens in New York (1974)
• WW2: Membership in Hitler Youth, which includes Sunday meetings, becomes obligatory (1939)
• Firestone Company put their inflatable tires into production (1923)
• WW2: 270 inhabitants of the Greek town of Kleisoura are executed by the Germans (1944)
• Mayflower sails from Plymouth on a return trip to England (1621)
• Julius & Ethel Rosenberg, Soviet spies, sentenced to death (1951)
• Matthew Simpson, powerful evangelist and abolitionist, saddled his horse and rode out on his first circuit (1834)
• Anne Sullivan teaches “water” to Helen Keller (1887)
• Death of Robert Raikes, English philanthropist regarded as the founder of the modern Sunday School movement (1811)
• Vietnam War: Massive antiwar demonstrations occur in many U.S. cities (1969)
• Winston Churchill resigns as British Prime Minister (1955)
• Earth’s 1st contact with the extra-terrestrial Vulcan species in the Star Trek universe (2063)

April 6:

• This day is believed by some Biblical scholars to be the actual date of the historical birth of Jesus Christ (6 BC)
• First modern Olympic Games take place in Greece, American James Connolly, wins first Olympic gold medal in modern history (1896)
• WW1: US declares war on Germany, enters World War I (1917)
• First Moravians arrive in Savannah, Georgia with the intent of becoming missionaries to Native Americans (1735)
• First US Congress begins regular sessions at Federal Hall in New York City (1789)
• US Civil War: Battle of Sayler’s Creek during US Civil War, 1/4 of Lee’s army cut off (1865)
• North Pole reached by Americans Robert Peary & Matthew Henson (1909)
• US Civil War: Battle of Shiloh, Union defeats Confederacy in SW Tennessee (1862)
• George Eastman begins selling his Kodak flexible rolled film for the first time (1889)
• First animated cartoon copyrighted (1906)
• Electric starter first appeared in cars (1912)
• Post It Notes introduced (1980)
• Cape Colony, the 1st European settlement in South Africa, established by Dutch East India Company under John of Riebeeck (1652)
• King Charles II signs Carolina Charter (1663)
• Jews of Prussia granted equality (1848)
• TV Dinner was first put on sale by Swanson & Sons (1954)
• American Radio Relay League, organization for hams, founded (1914)
• English militia shoots prisoners, 100’s killed (1815)
• Peter the Great, Tsar of Russia, ends tax on men with beards (1722)
• Grand Army of the Republic forms in Decatur, Illinois (1866)
• Mormon church leader Brigham Young, at age 67, married his 27th and last wife (1868)
• Lailat-ul Qadar, night Koran supposedly descended to Earth (610 AD)

April 7:

• Possible date of Jesus crucifixion (30 AD)
• The Internet’s symbolic birth date: publication of RFC 1 (1969)
• Ludwig von Beethoven’s first composition Missa Solemnis (Solemn Mass) premiered (1824)
• English chemist John Walker invents wooden matches (1827)
• U.S. troops capture Baghdad; Saddam Hussein’s regime falls two days later (2003)
• First settlement in Ohio at Marietta (1788)
• Mississippi Territory organized (1798)
• Slave revolt in New York kills 6 white men, 21 African Americans executed (1712)
• First brain tumor operation under local anesthetic performed by Dr K Winfield Ney (1923)
• US President Jimmy Carter breaks relations with Iran during hostage crisis (1980)
• Warren G. Harding’s Interior Secretary, Albert B. Fall, leases the Teapot Dome oil reserves to Harry Sinclair setting in motion what comes to be known as the Teapot Dome scandals (1922)
• First draft of Corpus Juris Civilis, a fundamental work in jurisprudence, issued by Eastern Roman Emperor Justinian I (529 AD)
• US President Eisenhower in news conference first to voice fear of a “domino-effect” of communism in Indo-China (1954)
• Workers Party of America (NYC) becomes official communist party (1923)
• Francis Xavier leaves Lisbon on a mission to the Portuguese East Indies (1541)
• Oklahoma ends prohibition after 51 years (1959)
• Supreme Court strikes down laws prohibiting private possession of obscene material (1969)
• The World Trade Organisation rules in favor of the United States in its long-running trade dispute with the European Union over bananas (1999)

April 8:

• German theologian and martyr, Dietrich Bonhoeffer hanged by Nazis, his last recorded words, “This is the end – – for me the beginning” (1945)
• Soviet Union issued regulations outlawing almost all public and many private expressions of Christianity (1929)
• Premiere of Mozart’s violin sonata K379 (1781)
• James Chalmer, missionary to Papua, and several Christian native evangelists, after being invited to a banquet, were surrounded by armed savages, clubbed to death and their bodies were cooked with sago and served as the main course of the promised feast (1901)
• Shearith Israel, first Jewish congregation organized in America, consecrated their synagogue in New York City (1730)
• WW2: U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt freezes wages and prices (1943)
• Carl Friedrich Gauss, German mathematician, proves the quadratic reciprocity law, the ability to determine the solvability of any quadratic equation in modular arithmetic (1796)
• First fire escape patented, wicker basket on a pulley & chain (1766)
• League of Nations assembles for last time (1946)
• The American Theological Society was organized at Union Theological Seminary (1912)
• Televangelist Jimmy Swaggert was defrocked by the Assemblies of God following the disclosure of his involvement with a prostitute (1988)
• South African State pass the Industrial Conciliation Act No 11 which excluded blacks from membership of registered trade unions and prohibited registration of black trade unions (1924)
• Smoking banned in Pentagon & all US military bases (1994)

April 9:

• Azusa Street three year revival begins under leadership of black evangelist William Seymour when tongues break out during a service (1919)
• US Civil War: Robert E. Lee and 26,765 troops surrender at Appomattox Court House to US Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant ending the Civil War (1865)
• Civil Rights Bill passes over President Andrew Johnson’s veto (1866)
• Richard Allen became America’s first black bishop and organized the African Methodist Episcopal Church (1819)
• NASA introduces America’s first astronauts to the press: Scott Carpenter, L. Gordon Cooper Jr., John H. Glenn Jr., Virgil “Gus” Grissom, Walter Schirra Jr., Alan Shepard Jr., and Donald Slayton (1959)
• Baghdad falls to U.S. forces ending the invasion of Iraqi (2003)
• US Civil War: Union surgeon Mary Edwards Walker is captured by Confederate troops and arrested as a spy during US Civil War (1864)
• US Revolutionary War: John Hancock refuses to allow two British customs agents to go below deck of his ship, considered by some to be the first act of physical resistance to British authority in the colonies (1764)
• Tornadoes striking West Texas & Oklahoma kill 169, injuring 1,300 (1947)
• Martin Luther King Jr., buried in Atlanta (1968)
• Hudson Bay Company cedes its territory to Canada (1869)
• Samuel R Percy patents dried milk (1872)
• Italy & US anarchists Sacco & Vanzetti given death sentences (1927)
• Winston Churchill becomes 1st honorary US citizen (1963)
• Funeral of Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother at Westminster Abbey UK as more than a million people line the streets (2002)
• Edward V aged 12 succeeds his father Edward IV as king of England. He is never crowned, and disappears presumed murdered, after incarceration in the Tower of London with his younger brother Richard (1483)

This Week in History 3/27 – 4/2

by Tamera Lynn Kraft

This Week in History

March 27:

• President Andrew Johnson vetoes civil rights bill which later becomes 14th amendment (1866)
• US Revolutionary War: Thomas Jefferson elected to the Continental Congress (1775)
• Typhoid Mary, Mary Mallon, is arrested and returned to quarantine on North Brother Island, New York after spending five years evading health authorities and causing several further outbreaks of typhoid
• Elizabeth Dirks, one of the first woman preachers of the reformation, was martyred by drowning (1549)
• WW2: Children’s Aktion-Nazis collect all the Jewish children of Lovno (1944)
• First Japanese cherry blossom trees planted in Washington, D.C. (1912)
• Spaniard Juan Ponce de León and his expedition first sight Florida (1513)
• WW2: General Eisenhower declares German defenses on Western Front broken (1945)
• First long-distance telephone call from Boston to New York (1884)
• First successful blood transfusion (1914)
• 583 die in aviation’s worst ever disaster when two Boeing 747s collide at Tenerife airport (1977)
• Charles I, King Of England, Scotland & Ireland, ascends English throne (1625)
• The modern shoelace, string and shoe holes, invented in England (1790)
• WW2: Japan leaves League of Nations (1933)
• The United States Government establishes a permanent navy and authorizes the building of six frigates (1794)
• Archbishop Joseph Francis Rummel ordered all Roman Catholic schools in the New Orleans diocese to end segregation (1962)
• Steve McQueen makes his network TV debut in Goodyear Playhouse (1955)
• First Mormon temple dedicated in Kirtland, Ohio (1836)
• Lillian Trasher, missionary to Egypt known as Mother of the Nile, left Egypt by order of the British government but returned 10 years later (1919)
• Andrew Rankin patents the urinal (1866)
• Nikita Khrushchev becomes Soviet Premier as well as First Secretary of the Communist Party (1958)

March 28:

• Worst accident in the history of the U.S. nuclear power industry begins when a pressure valve in the Unit-2 reactor at Three Mile Island fails to close (1979)
• New York State abolishes slavery (1799)
• Palm Sunday tornado outbreak of 1920 affects the Great Lakes region and Deep South states (1920)
• The United States State Department releases the Acheson-Lilienthal Report, outlining a plan for the international control of nuclear power. (1946)
• Bethel African Methodist Church of Philadelphia becomes first African church in US (1796)
• Senate censures US President Andrew Jackson for taking federal deposits from Bank of US (1834)
• First ambulance goes into service (1866)
• US Salvation Army officially organized (1885)
• “Greatest Show On Earth” was formed by PT Barnum & James A Bailey (1881)
• Jews are expelled from Tel Aviv & Jaffa by Turkish authorities (1917)
• Roman Emperor Caligula accepts the titles of the Principate (37 AD)
• Nathaniel Briggs patents a washing machine (1797)
• Paris is sacked by Viking raiders (845 AD)
• Mexican American War: Mexico drops diplomatic relations with US (1845)
• Birth of Bill Gaither, contemporary Gospel songwriter and vocal artist (1936)
• Scottish Parliament passed the Rescissory Act to overthrow Presbyterianism and restore the Anglican episcopacy to Scotland (1661)

March 29:

• Vietnam War: US troops withdraw from Vietnam (1974)
• John Winthrop, first governor of Massachusetts Colony, sets sail for America (1630)
• Construction is authorized of the Great National Pike, better known as the Cumberland Road, becoming the first United States federal highway (1806)
• Niagara Falls stops flowing for 30 hours due to an ice jam (1848)
• First Swedish colonists in America established a Lutheran settlement at Fort Christiana in the Colony of Delaware (1638)
• Beethoven debuts as pianist in Vienna (1795)
• Congress first approves building of Lincoln Memorial (1867)
• WW2: Movie star Jimmy Stewart is promoted to full colonel, one of the few Americans to rise from private to colonel in four years (1945)
• Republic of Switzerland forms (1798)
• Julius & Ethel Rosenberg are convicted of spying for the Russians (1951)
• The Republic of Ireland becomes the first country in the world to ban smoking in all work places, including bars and restaurants (2004)
• Ohio makes it illegal for children under 18 & women to work more than 10 hours a day (1852)
• Thousands of Whites massacred in Haiti (1804)
• 23rd Amendment to the US Constitution ratified, allowing Washington, D.C. residents to vote in presidential elections (1961)
• 20,000 attend Ludwig Von Beethoven’s burial in Vienna (1827)
• Birth of Winfield Scott Weeden, hymn writer and author of I Surrender All who led music and singing schools for the YMCA and Christian Endeavor (1847)
• 8 Ohio National Guardsmen indicted for shooting 4 Kent State students (1976)

March 30:

• 15th Amendment to the US constitution is adopted, guarantees right to vote regardless of race (1870)
• First recorded passage of Halley’s Comet (240 BC)
• All imperial lands, as well as lands belonging to monasteries, were confiscated by the Russian provisional government (1917)
• US buys Alaska from Russia for $7,200,000, 2 cents an acre, criticized as Seward’s Folly (1867)
• US President Reagan shot & wounded by John W Hinckley III (1981)
• US Civil War: Texas becomes last confederate state readmitted to Union (1870)
• Ether used as an anesthetic for first time (1842)
• Congress combined East & West Florida into Florida Territory (1812)
• Pencil with attached eraser patented (1858)
• Florida territorial government established (1870)
• WW2: Defecting German pilot delivers a Messerschmidt Me 262A-1 to Americans (1945)
• Vietnam War: North Vietnamese troops enter South Vietnam (1972)
• Birth of Moses Maimonides, medieval Jewish scholar (1135)
• Gandhi announces resistance against Rowlatt Act allowing incarceration without trial in India (1919)
• Dalai Lama fled China & was granted political asylum in India (1959)

March 31:

• Thomas P Mundy of Perth Amboy, New Jersey becomes the first black to vote in US (1870)
• WW2: German Republic gives power to Hitler (1933)
• Vietnam War: President Johnson denies further action in Vietnam (1965)
• The massacre of the population of the Greek island of Chios by soldiers of the Ottoman Empire following a rebellion attempt (1822)
• Eiffel Tower officially opens in Paris, tallest man-made structure for 41 years (1889)
• US Civil War: Confederacy takes over mint at New Orleans (1861)
• First daylight savings time in US goes into effect (1918)
• Vietnam War: US orders the first combat troops to Vietnam (1965)
• During British Civil War, English Parliament makes the Humble Petition to Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell offering him the crown: he declines (1657)
• Ferdinand and Isabella banished all Jews from Spain who did not convert to Christianity (1492)
• Bernard of Clairvaux preaches his famous sermon in a field at Vézelay, urging the necessity of a Second Crusade. Louis VII is present, and joins the Crusade (1146)

April 1:

• English pranksters begin popularizing the annual tradition of April Fools’ Day by playing practical jokes on each other (1700)
• Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs found Apple Computer in the garage of Jobs’ parents house in Cupertino, California (1976)
• Samuel Morey patents internal combustion engine (1826)
• US Air Force Academy forms (1954)
• Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute, in Washington DC. opened to train and teach freed slaves (1868)
• Ayatollah Khomeini calls for an Islamic Republic in Iran (1974)
• US Civil War: First wartime conscription law in US goes into effect (1863)
• WW2: Nazi Germany begins persecution of Jews by boycotting Jewish businesses (1933)
• US Civil War: Battle of 5 Forks Virginia, signalling end of Lee’s army (1865)
• US President Richard Nixon signs bill limiting cigarette advertisements (1970)
• WW2: US forces invade Okinawa (1945)
• WW2: Nazis forbid Jews access to cafés (1941)
• WW2: Heinrich Himmler becomes Police Commander of Germany (1933)
• Bonnie & Clyde kill 2 police officers turning public against them (1934)
• US Supreme Court rules jurors cannot be barred from serving due to race (1991)
• US Civil War: Shenandoah Valley campaign (1862)
• First Jewish immigrants to Israel disembark at Port of Eilat (1947)
• First radio tube made of metal announced (1935)
• US Navy takes over Treasure Island in San Francisco Bay (1941)
• Weight Watchers forms (1946)
• Cotton Mather’s four-day-old son dies, and witchcraft is blamed (1693)
• International Exhibition opens in Paris (1867)
• First dish washing machine marketed (1889)
• New Orleans businessman Oliver Pollock creates the “$” symbol (1778)
• Ruins of Pompeii rediscovered by Spaniard Rocque Joaquin de Alcubierre (1748)

April 2:

• Assemblies of God organized (1914)
• Mordecai Ham, evangelist who led Billy Graham to Christ, was born (1877)
• “Electric Theatre”, the first full-time movie theater in the United States, opens in Los Angeles, California (1902)
• The Coinage Act is passed establishing the United States Mint and authorizing the $10 Eagle, $5 half-Eagle & 2.50 quarter-Eagle gold coins & silver dollar, ½ dollar, quarter, dime & half-dime (1792)
• US Civil War: Confederate President Jefferson Davis flees Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia (1865)
• WW1: US President Wilson asks Congress to declare war against Germany (1917)
• Explorer Juan Ponce de León claims Florida for Spain as the first known European to reach Florida (1513)
• Jeannette Rankin begins her term as first woman member of US House of Representatives (1917)
• Vietnam War: Thousands of civilian refugees flee from the Quang Ngai Province in front of advancing North Vietnamese troops (1975)
• Albert Einstein lectures in New York City on his new “Theory of Relativity” (1921)
• First Easter egg roll held on White House lawn (1877)
• Charles Lindbergh turns over $50,000 as ransom for kidnapped son (1932)
• 4 US passengers killed by bomb at TWA counter Athens Airport Greece (1986)
• London prison for debtors closed (1884)
• Mills Committee declares baseball was invented by Abner Doubleday (1908)
• Teenage girl strikes out Babe Ruth & Lou Gehrig in an exhibition game in Chattanooga, Tennessee (1931)

This Week in History 3/20 – 3/26

This Week in History

March 20:

• Abolitionist Harriet Beecher Stowe published her classic antislavery novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852)
• WW2: Dachau, first Nazi concentration camp, completed (1930)
• US Supreme Court affirms its right to review state court decisions (1816)
• President Lyndon B. Johnson notifies Alabama’s Governor George Wallace that he will use Alabama National Guard to protect Civil Rights march from Selma to Montgomery (1965)
• Great Fire of Boston destroys 349 buildings (1760)
• WW1: After the sinking of 3 more American merchant ships, US President Woodrow Wilson meets with cabinet, who agree that war is inevitable (1917)
• Alessandro Volta reports his discovery of the electric battery (1800)
• 180 tonne blue whale caught in South Atlantic setting a record (1947)
• American missionary David Brainerd, age 28, ended two-and-one-half years of labor among the colonial Indians of New England, after having been continually plagued with tuberculosis with he would die of seven months later (1747)
• Birth of Fred Rogers, host of public television’s longest running children’s program Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood (1928)
• WW2: Final ratification of peace treaty restoring sovereignty to Japan by US Senate (1952)
• Vietnam War: US President Nixon proclaims he will end the war in 1970 (1969)
• Napoleon enters Paris after escape from Elba, begins 100-day rule (1815)
• United Dutch East Indian Company forms (1602)

March 21:

• Slave ship captain John Newton, author of Amazing Grace, accepted Christ as Lord and Savoir during a fierce storm (1747)
• Johann Sebastian Bach was born at Eisenach, Germany (1685)
• Martin Luther King Jr. begins march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama (1965)
• US Revolutionary War: Massacre at Hancock’s Bridge when at least 20 members of the Salem militia lost their lives, some after attempting to surrender, as Loyalists exclaimed, “Spare no one! Give no quarter!” (1778)
• US President Harry Truman signs Executive Order 9835 requiring all federal employees to have allegiance to the United States (1947)
• Journalist Henry Morton Stanley begins his famous expedition to Africa (1871)
• Persia officially renamed Iran (1935)
• Julius & Ethel Rosenberg convicted of espionage (1951)
• The Association of International Mission Services was founded to promote the work of foreign missions among independent Pentecostal and charismatic churches (1985)
• Olaudah Equiano aka Gustavus Vassa, a freed slave, petitions King George III and Queen Charlotte, to free enslaved Africans (1788)
• Civil Code of Napoleon adopted in France (1804)
• Author Louis L’Amour born (1908)

March 22:

• Nicia Council set date for Easter as the Sunday after the first full moon following the Spring equinox (325 AD)
• Date Gutenberg Bible might have been first published (1457)
• US Revolutionary War: Stamp Act passed (1765)
• Thomas Jefferson becomes the first US Secretary of State under President Washington (1790)
• US Revolutionary War: Stamp Act passed; first direct British tax on colonists (1765)
• Religious dissident Anne Hutchinson expelled from Massachusetts Bay Colony (1638)
• First American Indian, Powhattan, massacre of whites Jamestown Virginia, 347 slain (1622)
• In colonial Massachusetts, the Plymouth Colony made a treaty with the neighboring Indians which both sides kept for fifty years (1621)
• The St. Petersburg–Tampa Airboat Line becomes the world’s first scheduled airline (1914)
• Niagara Falls runs out of water because of a drought (1903)
• First patent for lasers, granted to Arthur Schawlow & Charles Townes (1960)
• First shopping mall opened in Southfield, Michigan (1954)
• WW2: Jimmy Stewart is inducted into the Army, becoming the first major American movie star to wear a military uniform in World War II (1941)
• WW2: Jimmy Stewart flies his 12th combat mission leading the 2nd Bomb Wing in an attack on Berlin (1945)
• First US nursing school chartered (1861)
• Illinois becomes first state to require sexual equality in employment (1872)
• US is the first nation to recognize the new government of Russia (1917)
• Vietnam War: US confirms its troops used chemical warfare against the Vietcong (1965)
• First colonial legislation prohibiting gambling enacted (1630)
• Edmunds Act adopted by the US to suppress polygamy, 1300 men later imprisoned under the act (1882)

March 23:

• US Revolutionary War: Patrick Henry made his “Give me liberty or give me death” speech (1775)
• Koldewey began excavation in ancient Babylon and unearthed many finds that proved Biblical texts about the city (1899)
• 8th Congress of the Russian Communist Party re-establishes a five-member Politburo which becomes the center of political power in the Soviet Union. Original members Vladimir Lenin, Leon Trotsky, Joseph Stalin, Lev Kamenev and Nikolai Krestinsky (1919)
• In London, composer George Frederic Handel’s famous oratorio Messiah was performed for the first time (1744)
• WW2: German Reichstag grants Adolf Hitler dictatorial powers in Enabling Act (1933)
• WW2: Largest operation in Pacific War when 1,500 US Navy ships bomb Japanese island of Okinawa (1945)
• Wright brothers obtain airplane patent (1903)
• US Civil War: Congress passes 2nd Reconstruction Act over President Andrew Johnson’s veto (1867)
• WW2: In Enabling Act, German Reichstag grants Adolf Hitler dictatorial powers (1933)
• WW2: US move native-born of Japanese ancestry into detention centers (1942)
• English Puritans John Greenwood and Henry Barrowe tried and sentenced to death on the charge of devising and circulating seditious books (1593)
• Elisha Otis installs his 1st elevator at 488 Broadway in New York City (1857)
• Waltham Abbey in Essex became the last monastery in England to transfer its allegiance from the Catholic Church to the newly-established Church of England (1540)
• Mormon John Doyle Lee was executed by a firing squad for masterminding the Mountain Meadows Massacre which killed a wagon train of 127 Arkansas Methodist emigrants bound for California (1877)
• Elisha Otis’ 1st elevator installed (1857)
• Draper takes first successful photo of the Moon (1840)
• Streetcar patented (1858)
• Flour rolling mill patented (1880)
• First recorded use of “OK”, oll korrect, in Boston’s Morning Post (1839)

March 24:

• US Revolutionary War: Britain enacts Quartering Act requiring colonists to provide temporary housing to British soldiers (1765)
• Fanny Crosby, blind author of over 2,000 hymns, was born
• William Leddra became the last Quaker in America to be martyred when he was hung in Boston (1661)
• Roger Williams is granted a charter to colonize Rhode Island (1664)
• El Salvador’s leading human rights activist, Archbishop Oscar Romero, was assassinated by a sniper while saying mass in a hospital chapel (1980)
• Planet Pluto named (1930)
• First automobile sold (1898)
• German scientist Robert Koch discovers bacillus cause of TB (1882)
• John Antes, first American missionary to Egypt, was born (1740)
• Scottish King James VI, son of Mary Queen of Scots, becomes King James I of England joining the English and Scottish crowns. (1603)
• Canada gives its black citizens the right to vote (1837)
• Mormon Joseph Smith beaten, tarred, & feathered in Ohio (1832)
• WW2: Largest one-day airborne drop, 600 transports & 1300 gliders (1945)
• John D. Rockefeller Jr donates NYC East River site to the UN (1947)
• Elvis Presley joins the army (1958)

March 25:

• First Easter, according to calendar-maker Dionysius Exiguus (31 AD)
• Roman Church historian Dionysius Exiguus determined this date for when the Annunciation took place (1 AD)
• US Revolutionary War: British Parliament passes the Boston Port Act, closing the port of Boston and demanding that the city’s residents pay for tea dumped into the harbor during the Boston Tea Party (1774)
• US Revolutionary War: Continental Congress authorized a medal for George Washington (1777)
• RCA manufactures 1st color TV set – 12½” screen at $1,000 (1954)
• US Civil War: First US Army Medal of Honor awarded (1863)
• Modern Olympics began in Athens, Greece (1896)
• Martin Luther King Jr. led 25,000 to state capitol in Montgomery, Alabama (1965)
• In NYC, Triangle Shirtwaist Factory catches fire killing 145, all but 13 girls (1911)
• US Supreme court rules “poll tax” unconstitutional (1966)
• Conrad Grebel arrived in St. Gall, Switzerland preaching about the need for repentance and baptism and illegally baptizing hundreds (1525)
• Great Awakening preacher George Whitefield started building Bethesda Orphanage which later became Bethesda School for Boys in Savannah, Georgia (1740)
• American missionary and martyr Jim Elliot reflected in his journal, “When it comes time to die, make sure that all you have to do is die” (1951)
• Henry Hudson embarks on an exploration for Dutch East India Co (1609)
• Sir Walter Raleigh renews Humphrey Gilbert’s patent to explore North America (1584)
• British Parliament abolishes slave trade throughout the British Empire; penalty of £120 per slave introduced for ship captains (1807)
• US Socialist Party forms in Indianapolis (1900)
• Under charter granted to Lord Baltimore, first settlers found Catholic colony of Maryland (1634)
• Great Dayton Flood (1913)
• Robert the Bruce crowned Robert I, King of Scots (1306)
• Richard I the Lion Heart, King of England, is wounded by a crossbow bolt while fighting France which leads to his death on April 6 (1199)
• Sir Walter Raleigh renews Humphrey Gilbert’s patent to explore North America (1584)
• Greece gains independence from Turkey (1821)

March 26:

• Birth of George Smith, famed English Assyriologist who during several expeditions to the site of ancient Nineveh unearthed over 3,000 cuneiform tablets including one which told the story of an ancient deluge similar to Noah’s Flood (1840)
• WW2: Iwo Jima occupied and US flag raised after 18,000 Japanese & 6,000 Americans killed (1945)
• Dr Jonas Salk announces vaccine to prevent polio (1953)
• Focus on the Family is founded by Dr. James Dobson (1977)
• Robert Richford Roberts, Methodist circuit rider who rode 5,400 miles the last year of his life, died at age 65 (1843)
• Territory of Orleans organizes in Louisiana Purchase (1804)
• Faye Edgerton, missionary to the Navajo who translated the Bible in Native American languages, was born (1889)
• WW2: Elsie S Ott becomes first woman awarded US Air Force Medal (1943)
• US Civil War: Voters in West Virginia approve gradual emancipation of slaves (1863)
• Joseph Smith first published The Book of Mormon (1830)
• Congress orders removal of Indians east of Mississippi to Louisiana (1804)
• US forbids immigration to criminals, anarchists, paupers & the sick (1910)
• This Side of Paradise, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s first novel, is published (1920)
• Congress appropriates $50,000 for Inter-American highway (1930)